The men’s tennis team is set to begin competition in the 2013 USTA/ITA Atlantic Regional Championship on Thursday, October 17th at Virginia Tech.

Captain Kristian Marquart is the only Owl in the main singles draw. The junior received a bye in the round of 32 and will face the winner of Delaware’s Troy Beneck and Aaron Capitel from George Mason in the round 16.

In the qualifying singles draw, sophomores Santiago Canete and Nicolas Paulus earned a bye in the round of 32 and will take to the court in the round of 16. Canete face off against the winner of Penn State’s Ramy Labna vs. Daniel Gray of UMBC ‘s match. Paulus will go head to head to against either David Kohan from Penn State or Evan Ward of Morgan State.

Hicham Belkssir, Maros Januvka, Vineet Naran, Sam Rundle and Hernan Vasconez will all begin their competition in the round of 32. Belkssir will take to the court against Saint Joseph’s Dan Barrus. Januvka will play Mateo Cevallos of Longwood, while Naran will square off against Eliott Labatie from UMBC. Rundle will take on Chris Young of Penn State and Vasconez will face Richmond’s Noah Fenton in the opening round.

Four pairs of Temple Owls will represent the cherry and white in doubles action. In the opening round, Rundle and Naran will face the duo of Mehdi Mekaoui and Harry Walshe from Duquesne. Belkssir and Marquart will team up against Old Dominion’s Jonas Kuwet and Zvonimir Podvinski. The duo of Canete and Paulus will take on the tandem of Biyik Akinshemayisn and Labatie of UMBC. Januka and Vasconez will face another pair from UMBC, Kamal Patel and Kevin Hsieh.

The USTA/ITA Regional Championships has attracted some of the top men’s and women’s players in the country. Well over 8,000 student-athletes from NCAA Division I, II, III, NAIA, Junior and Community Colleges compete at one of the 87 USTA/ITA Regional Championships held across the country.

This weekend, the Owls host will host their last two home games of the season against the Louisville and Cincinnati.

After playing the last three games on the road, Temple (6-7-1,1-4) returns to the confines of Ambler, Pa. this week. At the Ambler Sports Complex, the Owls will face Louisville (9-4-1,5-1) on Thursday at 3 p.m. followed by their Senior Day game against Cincinnati (7-8-1,3-2-1) on Sunday at 1 p.m.

The Owls have gone winless through four conference games since their conference schedule opening shutout against Houston. During the four game span, Temple has been outscored 9-2 and shutout twice.

On offense, the Owls have struggled to record shots and shots on goal during their conference schedule. In the five game stretch, Temple ranks at the bottom of the conference in shots, recording 27. Only Temple and Houston have averaged under double digit shots during conference play. Junior defender Alyssa Kirk has led the Owls in shots and shots on goal, but will attempt to find the back of the net for first time since August.

Louisville currently stands at first place in the American. Unanimous American Athletic Conference preseason team selection senior midfielder Charlyn Corral has led the Cardinals offensively, recording 12 goals and six assists. Freshman goalkeeper Paige Brown has started every game and has registered 49 saves.

Cincinnati’s junior defender Jae Atkinson has recorded 11 points on three goals and five assists, which leads the Bearcats. Redshirt freshman goalkeeper Natalie Smith has registered 52 saves and two shutouts in 12 starts.

Temple’s matchups against the Bearcats and the Cardinals will be the first games between the teams in program history.

The men’s basketball team was picked to finish fifth out of 10 teams in the American Athletic Conference this season.

The results were announced at The American’s media day on Tuesday. Louisville, the defending national champion, was picked unanimously to finish first in the Cardinals’ only year in the conference.

Louisville senior guard Russ Smith was selected as the American Athletic Conference Preseason Player of the Year. Along with Smith, the all-conference first team includes Louisville forward Chane Benahan, Cincinnati guard Sean Kilpatrick, Connecticut guard Shabazz Napier and Memphis guard Joe Jackson. Smith, Napier and Jackson were all unanimous decisions.

The American Athletic Conference held its inaugural women’s basketball media day Monday at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Montville, Ct.

With the day’s events came the release of the conference’s coaches’ preseason poll, which has Temple slated to finish ninth out of the conference’s 10 teams, ahead of only the University of Houston.

Defending national champion Connecticut will look to flex its status as a national powerhouse in a new conference, and was unanimously chosen by all voting coaches as the top-ranked team in the preseason poll. Louisville University, the national runner-up a season ago, came in at No. 2 in the ranking.

The American also announced the preseason All-Conference selections, Player of the Year and Freshman of the Year candidates, none of which included Temple.

Coach Tonya Cardoza and seniors Natasha Thames and Shi-Heria Shipp took part in the day’s events.

Temple will open the season against Big-5 rival La Salle University Nov. 8.

Temple is now ranked No. 22 after improving to a 7-3-2 record, and a 5-0-1 record at the Ambler Sports Complex.

The rankings comes after the Owls were able to come up with quality results against the then-No. 22 Connecticut and Southern Methodist.

The notable drops in the American Athletic Conference are Connecticut and Louisville. Neither team is ranked in the Top 25 now. Temple is now the only Top 25 ranked team in the conference, but still have yet to win in conference play.

Temple still needs to improve in conference competition in order to make the NCAA tournament this year.

In less than a week, players from the tennis teams will head to Virginia to compete against some of the best collegiate athletes in the country at the United States Tennis Association/Intercollegiate Tennis Association (USTA/ITA) Atlantic Regional Championships.

All the players on Temple’s men’s team were chosen and will begin competition on Oct. 17 at Virginia Tech University. The tournament will continue through the Oct. 22.

On the women’s side, four Temple athletes were selected including seniors Yana Mavrina, Alicia Doms, Jordan Batey and freshman Anais Nussaume. The women will compete at the University of Virginia from Oct. 18 to 21.

The players were selected by an ITA committee based on their records according to coach Steve Mauro.

The USTA/ITA Regional Championship will be the tennis teams’ last tournament of the fall season.